Students face the same old mess in 2013, writes Kelly Egan,
Bill 115 will be used, then repealed
So. That was the sound of the Model 115 hammer dropping? The big news from Queen’s Park on Thursday was the imposed conclusion of the labour dispute with Ontario teachers. Game over. Government wins in overtime.
Except for one weenie little thing: when classes resume Monday morning, nothing really changes for students. Same old mess in 2013.
Teachers will be back in the classroom, holding tight to their long list of what not to do, and our children — initial reports indicate — will still be denied their extracurricular activities and, in some cases, extra academic help.
Well done, people, on both sides. Thanks for screwing up the rest of the year for our kids.
As a parent — and hasn’t it been said over and over? — there’s no one left to cheer for any more. One side sounds near-blind with a sense of entitlement, the other sounds like they govern from outer space.
Not only are they not on the same page, they’re dressed for different parties.
Even the tones are worlds apart. “I hope this finds you well,” begins a Thursday email from the premier’s office, as though this were a Christmas wish, circa 1842. (Beware the velvet opening, hiding the falling anvil.)
“I want to begin by thanking you, our teachers and education support staff, for the work you do every day,” writes Dalton McGuinty in his open letter released Wednesday, pompoms about to be put away.
Truly? You want to thank them? You know, it makes no sense. Bill 115 is so awful, apparently, the government needs to repeal it. Wipe it off the books. But not before using that awful, awful law just this once!
And the teachers are so angry, so determined to defend their right to collective bargaining, they will trample the right of students — not even their adversaries — to a well-rounded education.
Sam Hammond is the president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and probably Bill 115’s fiercest opponent, on behalf of his 76,000 members.
He was clearly upset during his press conference following the announcement by Education Minister Laurel Broten, as though we stood on the edge of an apocalypse; something about “every single day” we “live with the consequences,” as though it were a terminal affliction.
Look. Teachers have done very well under the Liberal government, with pay rising in the area of 24 per cent in a decade, topping out in the $90K range. Their pension fund could buy a lot of countries.
So no tears, there, and the socalled accumulated sick leave was bad policy, anyway.
The bargaining was botched. Agreed. But being right about a rules breach does not win the battle of hearts and minds.
For all its blather about “negotiating,” however, the government was unable to come up with an agreement that RESOLVES the problem.
This thing is not fixed until the teachers are back doing all the things they normally do at school, from coaching basketball to organizing band trips.
This is not going to happen, at least in the short term. Don’t expect business as usual next week, warned Hammond.
Similarly, the high school teachers’ union is suggesting that extracurriculars will be withdrawn for the rest of this year and possibly for the duration of the imposed contract, to Aug. 31, 2014.
Great. So next year might be messed up, too, meaning thousands of students might endure a diminished education during a full half of their high school years.
Yet the government has a name for this charade. It’s called “Putting Students First.” Makes you want to scream. It’s one of those disputes where nobody’s right and everybody looks like a bully or a propagandist.
On its website, for instance, the Ontario Secondary Teachers’ Federation has a long list of things teachers were not to do, including: attend open house/information sessions outside the regular school day; answer parental emails or do parent interviews outside the regular day; or provide progress reports (written reports beyond those provided at midterm and end of term).
So the union tells teachers when they can email someone?
And they want to make an issue about upholding “rights”?
What about freedom of expression?
The government, meanwhile, has found a way to use 10 months of prep time and come up with a solution that satisfies almost nobody.
And it has illogically claimed the monetary savings were necessary to preserve things like full-day kindergarten, ignoring the orgy of other spending that put the public accounts in the red sea.
Hammers? Yes. A whole bag of them.